In parts 1 and 2 of this series, I talked about how perception is pre-cognitive and embodied. For part 3, I’ve paired two paradoxical aspects; that it is timeless and dynamic.
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Perception is timeless. It touches on the eternal.
“A flash of perception is a gap in the thinking process – a moment when we are suddenly stopped by something startling or shocking or absorbing. Time comes to a standstill and we are totally present. There are no concepts, judgments, or labels – just pure, direct, seeing.” ~ Michael Wood and Andy Karr, The Practice of Contemplative Photography
Time comes to a stop. We are totally present. The past and future are irrelevant, yet also contained in the moment. When we experience this timelessness, we are in a state of flow. We tap into something eternal which can’t be described in words. We feel alive in the fullest sense. This is the way I felt as I drove through the rolling hills of the Palouse farming region of eastern Washington State. It felt like I was home in a place I’d never visited before. Yet, somehow I’d known it all along.
Can you find a photograph of yours where you felt this way, one that has this timeless quality?
Perception is dynamic. It is ever changing.
“Things disclose themselves to our immediate perception as vectors, as styles of unfolding – not as finished chunks of matter given once and for all, but as dynamic ways of engaging the senses and modulating the body. Each thing, each phenomenon has the power to reach us and influence us. Every phenomenon, in other words, is potentially expressive.” ~ David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous
Paradoxically, this sense of time stopping is also dynamic. It’s ever changing. Nothing stays the same so everything is, in a sense, new in every moment. There are infinite possibilities for seeing.
As a photographer, that’s pretty exciting and challenging. To me, this photograph shows that dynamic, ever changing quality of summer grasses blowing in the wind. Find a photograph of yours that has this dynamic quality.
Can you find a photograph that shows both aspects at the same time? Now you’re on to something.